Double-multiple streamtube model for Darrieus in turbines

An analytical model is proposed for calculating the rotor performance and aerodynamic blade forces for Darrieus wind turbines with curved blades. The method of analysis uses a multiple-streamtube model, divided into two parts: one modeling the upstream half-cycle of the rotor and the other, the downstream half-cycle. The upwind and downwind components of the induced velocities at each level of the rotor were obtained using the principle of two actuator disks in tandem. Variation of the induced velocities in the two parts of the rotor produces larger forces in the upstream zone and smaller forces in the downstream zone. Comparisons of the overall rotor performance with previous methods and field test data show the important improvement obtained with the present model. The calculations were made using the computer code CARDAA developed at IREQ. The double-multiple streamtube model presented has two major advantages: it requires a much shorter computer time than the three-dimensional vortex model and is more accurate than multiple-streamtube model in predicting the aerodynamic blade loads

Modelling the aerodynamics of vertical-axis wind turbines in unsteady wind conditions

Most numerical and experimental studies of the performance of vertical-axis wind turbines have been conducted with the rotors in steady, and thus somewhat artificial, wind conditions - with the result that turbine aerodynamics, under varying wind conditions, are still poorly understood. The Vorticity Transport Model has been used to investigate the aerodynamic performance and wake dynamics, both in steady and unsteady wind conditions, of three different vertical-axis wind turbines: one with a straight-bladed configuration, another with a curved-bladed configuration and another with a helically twisted configuration. The turbines with non-twisted blades are shown to be somewhat less efficient than the turbine with helically twisted blades when the rotors are operated at constant rotational speed in unsteady wind conditions. In steady wind conditions, the power coefficients that are produced by both the straight- and the curved-bladed turbines vary considerably within one rotor revolution because of the continuously varying angle of attack on the blades and, thus, the inherent unsteadiness in the blade aerodynamic loading. These variations are much larger, and thus far more significant, than those that are induced by the unsteadiness in the wind conditions

3D Numerical Study Of Hill Mounted VAWT

The ground topography effect on the wind flow is significant. The knowledge of the flow behavior near ground is crucial in the development of wind power, especially in the choice of suitable sites and for estimation of energy production. In this paper, the numerical prediction of the flow over a three-dimensional hill model and the analysis of placement of Savonius turbines on top of the hill are presented. The numerical analysis is based on the finite volume method implemented in the ANSYS CFX 15 Software using the Shear-Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model. The numerical results for a conventional Savonius rotor and a vertical-axis spiral wind rotor are both satisfactory compared with experimental data. The performances of these turbines, installed on the hilltop, are studied for different height positions. Furthermore, the influence of the hill size on the extracted power is investigated. At TSR=1, the power coefficient of a conventional rotor is increased from 0.15 to 0.32 when the rotor is installed at a height of 0.25 m above the top of the hill, while it reaches 0.40 when the hill is two to three times higher. The helical Savonius rotor tested gives even higher power coefficient of 0.44

Low Reynolds Number Vertical Axis Wind Turbine for Mars

A low Reynolds number wind turbine is designed to extract the power from wind energy on Mars. As compared to solar cells, wind turbine systems have an advantage on Mars, as they can continuously produce power during dust storms and at night. The present work specifically addresses the design of a 500 W Darrieus-type straight-bladed vertical-axis wind turbine (S-VAWT) considering the atmospheric conditions on Mars. The thin atmosphere and wind speed on Mars result in low Reynolds numbers (2000-80000) representing either laminar or transitional flow over airfoils, and influences the aerodynamic loads and performance of the airfoils. Therefore a transitional model is used to predict the lift and drag coefficients for transitional flows over airfoils. The transitional models used in the present work combine existing methods for predicting the onset and extent of transition, which are compatible with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model. The model is first validated with the experimental predictions reported in the literature for an NACA 0018 airfoil. The wind turbine is designed and optimized by iteratively stepping through the following tasks: rotor height, rotor diameter, chord length, and aerodynamic loads. The CARDAAV code, based on the “Double-Multiple Streamtube” model, is used to determine the performances and optimize the various parameters of the straight-bladed vertical-axis wind turbine

A Posteriori Bounds for Linear-Functional Outputs of Crouzeix-Raviart Finite Element Discretizations of the Incompressible Stokes Problem

We present a finite element technique for the efficient generation of lower and upper bounds to outputs which are linear functionals of the solutions to the incompressible Stokes equations in two space dimensions; the finite element discretization is effected by Crouzeix-Raviart elements, the discontinuous pressure approximation of which is central to our approach. The bounds are based upon the construction of an augmented Lagrangian: the objective is a quadratic "energy" reformulation of the desired output; the constraints are the finite element equilibrium equations (including the incompressibility constraint), and the intersubdomain continuity conditions on velocity. Appeal to the dual max-min problem for appropriately chosen candidate Lagrange multipliers then yields inexpensive bounds for the output associated with a fine-mesh discretization; the Lagrange multipliers are generated by exploiting an associated coarse-mesh approximation. In addition to the requisite coarse-mesh calculations, the bound technique requires solution only of local subdomain Stokes problems on the fine-mesh. The method is illustrated for the Stokes equations, in which the outputs of interest are the flowrate past, and the lift force on, a body immersed in a channel

Wind turbine designs for urban applications: A case study of shrouded diffuser casing for turbines

The increased demand for renewable energy and the development of energy independent building designs have motivated significant research into the improvement of wind power technologies that target urban environments. However, the implementation of wind turbines in urban environments is still very limited. There have been some studies analyzing different designs of urban wind turbines either using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), wind tunnel tests or field data for existing or new turbine designs. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of urban wind energy by examining the various types of urban wind turbine designs, with a view to understand their performance and the synergy between the turbines and the urban environments. It also considers a flanged diffuser shroud mechanism - a fluid machine, mounted on rooftop of buildings used as casing for small wind turbines to improve turbine performance by using mainly CFD. The diffuser shroud mechanism can draw the airflow over buildings utilizing its special features such as, cycloidal curve geometry at the inlet and a vortex generating flange at the outlet, to guide and accelerate the airflow inside. The performance of the fluid machine is optimized parametrically. The mechanism is modeled on a building rooftop in a real test site in Montreal, Canada with real statistical wind data. The CFD result confirms the functionality of the fluid machine to take advantage of the airflow over buildings in complex built-environments for wind power generation

Real gas simulation of hydrogen release from a high-pressure chamber

Hydrogen release from a high-pressure chamber is to be modeled in this paper. Two approaches are developed to investigate the real gas effects at high pressures. In the first method, an analytical model is developed to simulate time histories of stagnation properties of hydrogen inside the chamber, as well as sonic properties of hydrogen at the orifice. Corresponding thermodynamic relations, which describe specific heats, internal energy and speed of sound, are derived based on the Beattie–Bridgeman state equation. Regarding the second approach, a 3-D unstructured tetrahedral finite volume Euler solver is applied to numerically simulate the hydrogen release whereby the solver is modified to take into account the real gas effects. All the required modification for calculation of real gas Jacobian matrices, eigenvectors and Roe's average convective fluxes are described. Real gas effect is thus modeled by the same state equation. Numerical and analytical results are then compared for ideal and real gas conditions and, to conclude, an excellent agreement is reported

Viscous flow and dynamic stall effects on vertical-axis wind turbines

The present paper describes a numerical method, aimed to simulate the flow field of vertical-axis wind turbines, based on the solution of the steady, incompressible, laminar Navier-Stokes equations in cylindrical coordinates. The flow equations, written in conservation law form, are discretized using a control volume approach on a staggered grid. The effect of the spinning blades is simulated by distributing a time-averaged source terms in the ring of control volumes that lie in the path of turbine blades. The numerical procedure used here, based on the control volume approach, is the widely known "SIMPLER" algorithm. The resulting algebraic equations are solved by the TriDiagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA) in the r- and z-directions and the Cyclic TDMA in the 0-direction. The indicial model is used to simulate the effect of dynamic stall at low tip-speed ratio values. The viscous model, developed here, is used to predict aerodynamic loads and performance for the Sandia 17-m wind turbine. Predictions of the viscous model are compared with both experimental data and results from the CARDAAV aerodynamic code based on the Double-Multiple Streamtube Model. According to the experimental results, the analysis of local and global performance predictions by the 3D viscous model including dynamic stall effects shows a good improvement with respect to previous 2D models

Parallel computations of finite element output bounds for conjugate heat transfer

This paper investigates the a posteriori finite element bound method applied to a heat transfer problem in a multi-material electronic components array. The temperature field is obtained by solving Poisson equations and convection–diffusion equations in different regions of the computational domain. The bound method calculates very sharp lower and upper bounds of the temperature of the hottest component which is assumed to be the engineering output of interest. This paper shows that for this two-dimensional problem the bound method can yield more than an 80-fold reduction in simulation time over a fine mesh calculation (330,050 d.o.f.) while still maintaining quantitative control over the accuracy of the engineering output of interest. Parallel implementation on a Beowulf cluster is also reported

Numerical simulation of high pressure hydrogen release through an expanding opening

Computational Fluid Dynamics is an effective tool to develop safety standards related to the sudden release of hydrogen from a high pressure reservoir. In this work, a three-dimensional in-house code is developed to numerically simulate the release of high pressure hydrogen (70 MPa) from a reservoir when the release area into air is expanding with time. Furthermore, high pressure hydrogen flows cannot be accurately simulated by the ideal gas equation; therefore the Abel-Noble real gas equation of state is applied. A transport equation is solved to find the concentration of hydrogen and air in the hydrogen-air mixture generated soon after release. The novelty of this work is to simulate and to study the flow when the release area enlarges rapidly. To obtain this capability, the solid boundaries of the release area are moved and the mesh follows based on a spring method. All the nodes in the mesh are moved at each time step accordingly to have a good quality mesh. Three initial diameters of 1.0 mm, 1.5 mm and 2.0 mm are tested for the release area, and opening wall speeds of 80 m/s and up to 300 m/s are discussed